The Ochre Archives blogsite enables me to record for my own future reference and to share various learnings and experiences, many of which are connected with the farm that Jan and I purchased in 2003, "Ochre Arch", Grenfell, Australia.
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Tuesday, 6 September 2011

Bees, Wattle and Emus

Earlier this morning we checked our lambing ewes up in the Big Pine Paddock. On the way back we saw something light blue and out of place in the distance in our Spring Paddock and drove up to investigate.

It transpired that what we were seeing (above) was 27 bee hives left in the paddock left without our knowledge or permission. All of the hives had a common number on them which we deduced was a registration number. A quick search of the internet brought to light some contacts in the NSW Dept of Primary Industries who are involved in regulating the bee industry. A call to the main contact for NSW resulted in us being given the name and phone number of the bloke who owns (unless the hives have been sold or stolen) the bees. He lives in Bathurst and we have at this point left a message with his daughter for him to ring us back.

This afternoon we walked up to the Spring Paddock to see if the hives were still there. They were, and we took the photographs in this blog post. On the way there we walked past the enclosure we constructed last year where we transplanted some wattles. Of the 10 we transplanted from roadside reserves 4 are thriving and one was in full flower as you can see above.

As we approached the spring we saw 5 emus near it (above), all of which seem to have recently decided to call our place home. The spring is the most easily accessible permanent water point in the north east part of our place and it seems this is where they are regularly coming for water.

At the spring itself it was a bit of a surprise to see and hear just how many bees from the hives were sourcing water there. It was truly 'buzzing'. On the way from the spring to the hives there was quite a flow of two-way bee traffic. At the hives themselves we took a 12 second video which you can access of YouTube here. We also took a close-up still shot of one of the hives (below) where you can see the access point into the hive itself.

About Me

I grew up on the family farm at Grenfell in Australia, obtained a degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of New England and spent just over 25 years working for the National Australia Bank (the last 8 of which were in senior project, change management and representative roles) in Sydney, Orange, Wollongong and Melbourne. In 2003 Jan and I bought a farm, "Ochre Arch", Grenfell as an investment enabling us to reconnect with the land. We now live on and work at and from the farm.